FAITH'S PROVISION (GOD PROVIDES)

CHAPTER 11 THE EVANGELIST'S METHODS, STRATEGIES AND SPECIAL ABILITIES

ABILITIES

The Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists website lists the following specialty areas of giftedness in evangelism:

Most evangelists could fit under several of the above titles, but some men specialize in only one area.

Some evangelists will teach the Gospel, while others will dynamically deliver the Gospel. Some will have deliveries of a very educated manner, reaching the mind before pulling on a man's heart. Others have deliveries, which will strike straight for the heart. The evangelist speaks with intensity regardless of volume (loudness). God has so gifted the evangelist, that those who are ready for salvation will be impacted and cling to every word.

One statement can be made about the preaching of every revival evangelist, "He makes the message so clear and plain that I can understand it." The evangelist is practical in his sermon applications and often gives applicable illustrations in his sermons. He delivers the message in a life and death urgency.

A child accompanied her mother to a preaching service of Dr. Harry A. Ironside. The little girl listened with rapt attention to the straight forward, simple Gospel message. Upon leaving the church, the child said to her mother, "Mother, I thought Dr. Ironside was a great preacher." "Yes, darling, he is, but why do you thus talk?" "Why," said the little girl, "I understood everything he said!" Dr. Ironside considered the saying of the child one of the greatest compliments ever paid him.⁶⁸

Simplicity is often a quality of the pastor's preaching, but it must always be a quality of the evangelist's preaching. Heart touching and vivid illustrations are an important part of the evangelist's sermon delivery. Evangelist Dwight L. Moody said, "Many times I have found that when the sermon, and even the text, has been forgotten, some story has fastened itself in a hearer's mind, and has borne fruit. Illustrations are like windows to let light in upon a subject."⁶⁹

It was said of Evangelist George Whitefield's sermons that they:

...abounded in striking figures of speech and in vivid illustrations. Lord Chesterfield heard him graphically describe a sinner, under the figure of a blind man, going along the edge of a cliff, guided only by his staff. As the blind man came to the edge, suddenly his staff fell from his hand. As Whitefield described the man seeking to recover it and just ready to step into the chasm, Chesterfield bounded from his seat, exclaiming, "O God; he's gone! Save him!"⁷⁰

We must preach what has passed through the crucible of our own experience. We shall never produce conviction in others, until the truth is a burning conviction in our own souls. Bunyan said: "I preached what I did feel, what I smartingly did feel!"⁷¹

Every evangelist must be sure he is right with God and in fellowship with God before he steps into the pulpit. His heart must be afire with the message of God.

"How can I get crowds to attend my services?" asked a young preacher of John Wesley. Replied Wesley, "Get on fire and people will come out to see you burn!"⁷² How can I live victoriously? How can I get on fire and stay on fire? An aged minister gave Billy Sunday the answer shortly after Billy's conversion.

The minister said, "My boy, if you'll do three things daily, you'll be a victorious Christian: spend fifteen minutes daily reading God's Word, letting God talk to you; fifteen minutes in prayer talking to God; and fifteen minutes talking to someone else about God."⁷³

The subject of every sermon is Christ and His work of salvation past, present, and future. The cross should never be left out of any sermon the evangelist preaches even if it is on tithing.

Mr. Birch, a well-known evangelist, tells of a dying unbeliever whom he visited by request. The man had long been ill, and was in great temporal as well as spiritual need. Mr. Birch, with Christian liberality, had supplied his temporal needs, and now the dying man told him he had sent for him, not to speak about religion, for he didn't believe in it, but to thank him for his great kindness to him. "Will you answer me one question?" asked Mr. Birch. "Yes, providing it is not about religion." Lifting his heart in prayer to God, Mr. Birch said, "You know I have to preach tonight. Many will be gathered to hear me    mostly poor people, who, like you, will soon have to face death. I ask you, what shall I preach about?" There was silence for a moment. Then, with tear dimmed eyes and trembling voice, the unexpected answer was given, "Mr. Birch, preach Christ to them! Preach Christ to them!" ⁷⁴

Even lost men expect the evangelist to preach Christ and they should never, ever be disappointed. The evangelist's strategy in revival-evangelism has changed little over the past 200 years. Generally, the first few sermons of revival are shotgun sermons preached especially to the Christians, calling them to repentance, revival, and a renewed obedience, but at the same time giving the lost an opportunity to be saved. Once the church is revived, then the evangelist will preach exclusively to the lost.

In years gone by, two-week revivals known as protracted meetings were held in churches. The first week was used for preaching revival to the saved, and the second week was used as an evangelistic campaign. Actually, the first week took the place of revival preparation done in today's churches. Visitation of the lost and publicity for the second week of evangelism were a result of the reviving of the church during the first days of the revival.

In today's fast paced society, revivals have shortened from 14 days or longer to the Sunday morning through Wednesday night meeting or one-day harvest. The six weeks of revival preparation, of prayer, of witnessing, publicity, etc., prepares the church for a great work of God. It has been my experience that God can do just as much in a prepared church in the Sunday through Wednesday crusade, as He can in 14 days. Hallelujah! Nothing is impossible with God.

Often the evangelist will come in only to reap a harvest. Sometimes the Spirit will lead a man to preach only to the church and still God will save people, because he has given the man to the church as an evangelist. An evangelist always preaches for a verdict, as illustrated by the following:

A brilliant and successful lawyer said: "When I was at the bar, I used to take it for granted, when I had before me a jury of respectable men that I should have to repeat my main position about as many times as there were persons in the jury box. I learned that unless I illustrated and repeated and turned the main points over   the main points of law and evidence   I should lose my case. Our object in addressing a jury is to get their minds settled before they leave the jury box; not to make a speech in language but partially understood by them; not to display our oratory, and then let them go. We are set on getting a verdict. Hence we are set upon being understood."

Tell me the story slowly,

That I may take it in  

That wonderful redemption,

God's remedy for sin.⁷⁵

The evangelist never assumes that people understand the Gospel or any aspect of the Christian life. One man wrote the following:

What mischief we often work when we assume that those to whom we preach have at least a little knowledge of God's Word. We assume that those listening to us are familiar with our references to sacred things. The opposite is often true. Even many professing Christians may be inexcusably ignorant of God's Word.

A minister spoke on the family altar. In his audience was a recently converted Roman Catholic. She listened with seeming understanding. Days passed. A Christian friend called at her home. To her consternation, she observed in the house a shrine on which had been placed the little images, which meant something to her in her former faith. "What is this?" Asked the astonished friend. "This is my family altar! Did not the pastor in his sermon urge us to establish a family altar?" "Oh, dear," said the Christian friend, "having a family altar in the home means that the family gathers daily to read God's Word and pray!"⁷⁶

Evangelist Leonard Ravenhill stated, "Brother ministers, let not sin-sick souls, with burdened minds and battered spirits, turn away from our messages empty because, when they sought a spiritual remedy, we offered them only one more dreary diagnosis of the crisis of the hour!"⁷⁷ Men must hear the glorious victorious message of the Messiah, the risen Christ to save. Every time an evangelist preaches, he gives an invitation. Very seldom will God stop an evangelist from publicly calling men to respond to the Word of God.

During the summer of 1972, I preached revivals between college graduation and my entry into seminary. One of the meetings was with Rev. R. E. McKee of Eighty-fifth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. He advised me to call on the church to respond specifically in revival.

He said, "If you preach on the family; call on families to come forward and make a commitment to family altar. If you preach on tithing and revival from Malachi; call on people to make commitments to tithing by coming forward and sharing with the pastor. Get the people involved in your invitation, because every act of renewed obedience is extremely important and must be seen as such by a public commitment."

Over the years, I have followed that Godly advice and it has truly been wonderful advice. God's hand is especially on the evangelist for the stirring of the church, and for the grabbing of the heart strings of the lost. An evangelist will be tempted by Satan to grow lax in extending the invitation. Do not be lazy; extend that invitation! Allow the Holy Spirit of God time to work in men's hearts. Some men may over extend an invitation, but as a general rule in most First churches, we close the invitation long before God has ample time to work.

A minimum of three verses should be sung during the invitation. The invitation should continue as long as people are coming. Generally, it is good to close the invitation when people stop coming. But the pastor and evangelist should both feel led to close the public invitation before they stop. My impatience has often caused me to stop before all those who wanted to come, had come. Always remember that the invitation time belongs to God's Holy Spirit. Please be in tune with Him and follow His leadership completely. It has often been my experience to see more people make public decisions between the third and thirteenth verses of the invitation songs than any other time. Beyond the thirteenth verse, on rare occasions when an invitation goes that long, (If the church has ample counselors this will be rare.), I have seen men and others for whom the church has been praying for years, come to follow Christ in baptism, be saved, join by transfer of letter, or come from another denomination to identify with a local church. On occasion estranged family members have gotten back together.

In actuality God's invitation for the salvation of men does not close when the service stops. The week of February 22, 1987, at Prays Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, a 70-year-old man was so under conviction of his lost condition after the Sunday night service that he wrestled with God until the wee hours of the morning. At three o'clock in the morning he rolled out of bed, got on his knees at the foot of the bed, and called on Christ to save him. On Monday he told his wife and they agreed that he would talk with the preacher personally to confirm his decision before he came forward at the church service. He was unable to catch up to the preacher on Monday before the service, so he set up a time on Tuesday and on Tuesday evening he came forward before the choir began to sing the invitation.

In a church revival it is generally best to deal with those making decisions for Christ during the invitation. The most effective way in my ministry has been for the pastor to receive the people who come and to have trained counselors to deal with each person according to their need. In citywide crusades the ratio of decisions to counselors is one to one. If you want 500 decisions for Christ you need to train 500 counselors. Local churches must have the staff members who are not involved with the singing, stand with the pastor to receive those coming forward for salvation, church membership, rededication or to answer God's call for full time service. Other churches must utilize eight or more trained counselors to stand at the front to receive people.

Some evangelists ask people to go to a specified room where they are dealt with individually. Others ask people to fill out a card while sitting in the pew so that they can be dealt with in the privacy of their own homes. Others ask inquirers to come forward and stand at the front of the church, and then the evangelist leads them in prayer to deal with them as a group. The ways of extending an invitation are manifold. When properly prepared and executed all are very effective.

In order to stay sharp in extending the invitation, an evangelist should evaluate with the pastor what is happening in peoples' lives who come forward. I personally read the first two chapters of John Bisagno's book The Power of Positive Evangelism through at least once a year. These are two excellent chapters on evangelistic preaching and giving the public invitation to receive Christ. The other book I try to read once a year is Dr. Roy Fish's book Giving a Good Invitation. Broadman Press prints both. Two other books that every evangelist should have to help evaluate his preaching and invitation are Effective Evangelistic Preaching by V. L. Stanfield, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1965 and R. Alan Streett's The Effective Invitation, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1984.